


Falling In A Forest

by J_E_McCormick



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Gen, Mild Description Of Injury, brief mention of sickness, suicide TW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 03:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11980917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_E_McCormick/pseuds/J_E_McCormick
Summary: He’d meant to fall backwards. From this height, falling backwards would kill him for sure. He’d hit his head and be dead within an instant. Evan knew exactly what he was doing.





	Falling In A Forest

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's got a new obsession and is running headlong into a new fandom~
> 
> This is really not the worst or most graphic fic I've written involving suicide, but the warning still stands - this fic basically goes over Evan's attempt. Be careful.

He’d meant to fall backwards. From this height, falling backwards would kill him for sure. He’d hit his head and be dead within an instant. Evan knew exactly what he was doing.

~

It’s harder than he’d anticipated. He’d lean back a little, a little more, a little more, and then – and then his heart would jump into his throat and he would reel forwards again, gagging on the fear and choking on tears. It was so _frightening_. Every part of him screamed not to do it. Every muscle in his body is spasming hard with the adrenaline, making him shake like a leaf in the breeze.

Evan is sobbing harshly – loud, gasping, ugly things, interspersed with unrestrained wails and shaking gasps for breath. No-one is around to hear, and for once he can just cry and scream and break down and not have to hold any of it back. Part of him wants to, still, in case anyone heard; what if someone was walking down a trail, and heard him, and he interrupted their peaceful scenic walk with his pathetic crying?

(Another part of him wants to scream louder, louder, louder, to see if anyone would hear and care enough to come and find him and get him down from this damned tree.)

(No-one does.)

His thoughts spiral out of his control, thinking how stupid he is, how cowardly, how useless he is that he can’t even follow through with the suicide plan he’s been mulling over for weeks. How selfish he is that he can’t even do this thing to help people, to relieve them of the burden he is. He lifts his hands to hit his head harshly, as if the pummelling of his fists can force the thoughts right out of his head. He sucks in breath after shallow breath, each released in a strained whine.

_Just do it, do it, do it, **do it** …._

Evan throws himself backwards, a sharp bowing of his back that topples him off the branch and starts him falling. He does it that way so he won’t stop himself again, but there’s a moment where his stomach drops and his hands automatically move to grasp at whatever they can, a reflexive response to try and save himself.

He doesn’t manage to grab anything, and he falls.

It feels like he falls forever. For a very long, long moment, Evan is able to take in the world like it’s stopped. The way the trees mottle together. The dim shine of the sun through the canopy. The texture of the bark, the weight of his phone in his pocket in case he wanted to send his mum one more message. He thinks for a moment about how his mum used to cradle him when he was upset as a child, pulling him to her chest and wrapping him up in her arms and just surrounding him with warmth, love, safety. He misses the feeling of absolute security those moments would give him, like nothing could go wrong, nothing could ever be bad. He wishes he’d left her a proper note – he could never figure out the right wording, and in the end he’d scrapped them all except one, short and simple, hidden under his textbooks on his desk for her to find.

_Mum, I’m sorry. I can’t do all of this anymore. I love you. I’m sorry._

She’d miss him, he knows she would. She would be so upset, and she would cry. For a long while, that had kept him alive. He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of hurting his mum. But eventually the pile of things he had to deal with in life had outweighed her, the people and the classes and the teasing and the crushing, endless loneliness…

She’d be happier eventually, Evan assures himself. When she didn’t have to pay for his therapy and medication and deal with his panic attacks and awkwardness and moods. She could focus on her classes. She wouldn’t have to pick up so many extra shifts. She could probably get a nicer house. Maybe she would even start dating, finally find someone to be happy with when she didn’t come with a useless, socially debilitated teenager attached. He hoped so. Evan wanted his mother to be happy…

The moment seems to go on and on and on. Evan just stares at the sky and the leaves, and thinks. He feels oddly calm, but it’s good. Nice. He doesn’t feel calm often.

But then he hits a branch. The back of his legs hits a branch and for a moment he’s caught on it before he continues to fall – face first. The branch had flipped him. Suddenly everything was going much, much faster, and it was more and more terrifying. He screams, trying to flail and kick and do anything to catch himself before he hits the ground that is looming closer by the second.

He hears a sickening crack and there is a pain that whites out everything. Oddly enough, he doesn’t really feel himself hit the ground – he just feels pain, and afterwards registers that he is now lying down on rough dirt and grass.

He’s not sure how long it takes for his vision to start returning. He becomes aware of some terrible noise and takes a moment to realise it’s him, crying out brokenly, sobs and screams and gasps that he can’t properly control. Slowly, slowly, he feels his nerves revive, letting him feel the body-wide ache that is starting to settle into his bones. He can feel the sharp sting of grazes where he’d caught the bark of the branch he’d hit, the dull throb of bruises over his chest. He carefully tries to shift everything, tentatively wriggling his fingers and toes – and that’s when he realises he can’t feel his left arm.

Evan manages to lift his head carefully and looks over, feeling fear start to crawl up his throat again. The sensation morphs quickly into nausea as he looks over and sees his arm bent in a place it is definitely not meant to bend in. It’s bowed outwards, making a sick zig-zag with his elbow, and Evan turns away and promptly vomits. Once he’s done retching he doesn’t dare to look back again.

He manages to shift himself a little, rolling onto his back and screaming for a moment with the pain as his arm is moved, and shuffling away from the ex-contents of his stomach, and then lies there, sobbing. The tears come hard and fast, absolutely no barrier or control. Unlike before, where they had been from some deep emotional part of him, these came from his primal fear and pain. They are the cries of a wounded animal, a plea for aid, for help.

He cries and cries and cries, sobs interspersed with shouts for help and gasps of pain, but the only thing he gets in response is the rustling of the leaves in the wind. No-one appears to help him. No-one hears his desperate pleading, his calls for someone, anyone, to find him and help him. He lies there until he is cried out, completely spent, shaking with shock and the adrenaline crash.

Then, he lies there, shaking and shuddering and silent.

Still, no-one comes. Still, no-one finds him. Still, no-one seems to be looking for him.

He was right. No-one would have noticed if he’d died here. No-one would have cared.

He waits a little while longer, maybe clutching to a tiny thread of hope that someone would find him, maybe just getting his thoughts together in his head, before he decides that if he isn’t going to die, he should get to the hospital. He very gingerly manages to sit himself up, gritting his teeth hard at the pain in his arm as he moves, then he carefully manoeuvres to his feet. He staggers, for a moment almost ending up back on the ground, but he manages to catch his shoulder on the tree trunk and lean himself against it a moment as he regains control of his legs.

He realises that he’s probably not going to be able to get himself to hospital in this state. He’s not even sure he can make his way out of the park, never mind back into town and to the hospital. He can’t call an ambulance – that would be far too expensive, and he’s already going to be dropping a huge bill on his mother for the broken arm. ( _Burden_.) But his mum is at work, she wouldn’t be able to come and get him either. And that left him with…

No-one, really.

He didn’t have any friends. His father was long gone. He could call his boss, he supposed, and that was it.

Evan is hit very heavily with the wish that he’d just died, like he’d meant to. He has a brief thought to try again, but with a badly broken arm and the fact he couldn’t even stand straight, he didn’t think he’d manage to get high enough up the tree to do anything other than cause himself more pain and his mother more money.

He shakily grabs for his phone. It’s a little hard, because it’s in his left pocket and he can’t use his left arm at all and it’s awkward to reach across himself, feeling unnatural. Then he has to fumble it around until he manages to unlock it and pull up his boss’ number. He’s glad no-one is around to see the fool he’s making of himself. He stares for a moment at the call button, before he makes himself press it because _Jesus Christ, Hansen, you just fell out of a tree, phone anxiety is not a top priority now_.

His boss sounds very worried when he tells her, in an odd combination of stuttering and slurring, that he’d fallen out of a tree – “it was, it was an a-accident, I, I just, I thought I would climb a-and, well…” – and that he’d broken his arm and needed help to hospital. She tells him to get onto one of the trails and she’d come and fetch him right away. She also tells him not to hang up so she could stay on the phone with him, and Evan just dumbly agrees and listens to her talk at him as he stumbles his way to a path. He follows it for a little while, to get closer to the park’s entrance, but eventually his legs just gave out from beneath him and he collapses down, shaking and feeling a little floaty. He thinks he may be in shock. He isn’t sure.

Eventually his boss finds him, hurrying to him and pulling him up again and half-carrying him to her car. She settles him carefully in the passenger seat – he tries not to cry out so loudly when he has to shift the way he’s holding his broken arm to fit in the car – and then near enough runs around to the driver side to start the car. Evan grits his teeth at the bumps and corners the car hits, trying to ignore the pain by pressing his forehead to the cold glass of the window and squeezing his eyes shut.

This was not how today was meant to go. He was meant to go out to his favourite park, and die surrounded by peace and tranquillity, and everyone else was meant to go on with their lives, unaffected and finally free of his burden.

Instead he’s in pain, bothering his boss by making her come out to get him and take him to hospital, and costing his mother money in medical bills.

Figures, he supposes, that he can’t even manage to kill himself right.

**Author's Note:**

> As with everything, feedback is hugely appreciated! I might actually stick around in this fandom a little while, so there is a chance I might write more, so it would be super helpful.


End file.
